After hearing Arizona state senator-elect Russell Pearce blame much of society's crime problems on undocumented immigrants, Utah state Rep. Neil Hansen, D-Ogden, said such people aren't solely responsible for criminal activity.
But Pearce said if they are here illegally then that's a crime.
Hansen asked facetiously if the government should just shoot immigrants at the border.
That comment was met by a burst of applause by a section of the audience at Dixie State College.
The meeting of the Legislature's Interim Committee on Immigration was as informative at times as it was inflammatory.
The group, comprised of 11 members of Utah's House and Senate, has been traveling the state to collect input on a Senate bill concerning undocumented workers that takes effect in July 2009.
Under provisions of SB81, employers with government contracts must verify employment eligibility using a Social Security number run through a new federal program called E-Verify.
The program could be made mandatory as a hiring formality for all businesses in Utah.
Gloria Aitken, an official with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said that once an employer registers with the system, all that is required is typing in an employee's Social Security number and it's checked with databases with the Social Security Administration and National Homeland Security.
If the information checks out, the employer gets an immediate response verifying the information is valid. If not, the system can return a tentative nonconfirmation.
A tentative nonconfirmation gives the employee eight days to correct errors with the information or they are classified as a nonconfirmation, allowing the employer to fire the worker.
The system is used on workers after their hiring, and businesses registered with the system must display a poster showing they are in the program.
The program is designed to be nondiscriminatory and covers workers regardless of race or immigration status. Its purpose is to crack down on identity theft.
Barbara Szweda, a public-policy advocate with American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, told the panel to go slow, claiming errors in a person's information, like a misspelled name or wrong date of birth, could harm employment opportunities.
Even if the right information is used and not verified, eight days dealing with the federal government is often too little time to clear up anything, Szweda said.
Pearce, a former law-enforcement official, stressed any undocumented immigrant can be arrested by any police officer and that special federal criteria concerning an arrest - such as questioning a suspect about immigrant status - is a myth.
Pearce said employers are drawing immigrants across the border.
"It's the corporate oligarchy who want cheap labor and a few on the left who want to change the demographic," Pearce said. "They're joining hands on the backside."
